An Act of Courage
by Mystical Magician
Summary: Iruka didn't know how it had happened, nor why. The reality was thus: he was a 16-year-old not-quite-master waterbender in an unfamiliar world. He had no frame of reference, no home, and no reason to go on living; until the three children. AU Narutoverse. Eventual kakairu.
1. Prologue, Part 1: Before

**Prologue, Part 1: Before**

_Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.  
__-Seneca_

Iruka is one of the first waterbenders born to the Southern Water Tribe in the wake of the Hundred Year War.

Less than a decade after the war, and they still struggle to rebuild the Southern Tribe. It is nowhere near its former glory, but the help of its sister tribe has proven invaluable. That is how Iruka's parents meet.

His father is a warrior – or was, when warriors were desperately needed, when no one could see an end to the fighting and hope was a fragile, fading thing. Tikaani had survived the Fire Nation raids that had killed the rest of his family, had survived small Water Tribe raids against their more powerful enemy, had survived the battle on the Day of Black Sun, and the imprisonment that followed. He was not a particularly powerful warrior, nor particularly skilled, but he was a stubborn survivor, and had passed that trait down to his son.

Iruka's mother, Yuzuki, is from the Northern Water Tribe, part of the group led by Sifu Pakku to help their sister tribe recover and rebuild. She was a waterbending healer's apprentice then, and made the waterbender's ward when the last of Yuzuki's family was killed in the siege. She is not a waterbending prodigy; she never learns to fight as the legendary Katara does, even away from the strict traditions of her home tribe. But Yuzuki finds peace, and a purpose. One day she becomes a healer in her own right. And one day, she finds love in Tikaani.

Iruka is a cheerful child. He laughs and plays with the other children, goes penguin sledding and has snowball fights, builds igloos and plays at being a warrior. He joins the sporadic waterbending classes Sifu Katara holds; sporadic because she is a diplomat, a hero, and the Avatar's consort, and peace is still so new and precarious. She is away, in the Earth Kingdom or the Fire Nation, far more often than she is present. But her lessons are always a treat, for she rewards their efforts and achievements with stories of her adventures with the Avatar. Iruka loves the stories, soaks them up and repeats them to himself, imprints them in his mind.

And sometimes the other waterbending masters, what few there are, hold the occasional lesson. But they are so rarely available, and that is fine; Iruka is still a young child, hardly a prodigy, and he is among the oldest of this new generation of waterbenders. In any case, his father teaches him how to track, and how to throw a boomerang, and his mother teaches him all she knows of healing. Iruka thinks he'll be a warrior healer, maybe, when he grows up.

When Iruka is nine his world ends.

Tikaani is a trader now, has been since Yuzuki was pregnant with their son. This is the first time Iruka and his mother join him in a small trading group traveling north through the Earth Kingdom toward the Northern Water Tribe, and Iruka is wildly excited. He dreams of adventures, and epic battles, and all the new people he will meet. He walks hand in hand with his mother in the mornings when they break camp, and when he grows tired of walking and exploring the roadside, his father carries him or places him on the back of a buffalo yak. Each night he proudly helps to build the campfire, and each night his mother tells him stories of adventurers, of the Avatar, of the spirit world, and especially of Tui, La, and Yue, the spirits most important to the Water Tribes.

They are a day and a half away from Ba Sing Se when the raiders strike. Iruka doesn't understand. There is chaos and screaming and blood, so much blood. His father tries to rally them, and the men draw out clubs and scimitars, while the only other waterbending fighter in their group draws from a water skin.

"Down with the benders!" someone shouts. Iruka barely hears them; something tangles with his legs and he hits the ground hard. He needs to find water, needs to remember his waterbending lessons, but he trembles with panic and the breath is knocked from his lungs.

"Iruka!" his mother shouts, yanking him to his feet and shoving him toward the trees.

And then there is a man before him, in torn and dirty clothes the dark green and brown colors of the Earth Kingdom. His teeth are bared, gaps evident and a scar at the corner of his mouth, but it is the bandit's eyes that catch Iruka's, so cold and merciless and empty. The katana flashes out, and Iruka's mother yanks him back but not quite fast enough. He screams, wails in shock and agony as the sword edge drags across the bridge of his nose and blood drenches his face.

"Run Iruka!" his mother demands, tears in her eyes as she pushes him behind her, toward the forest. "Run fast, and hide!"

And his mother, who has never learned to fight, draws the water from her bag and mimics a fighting stance she has only ever seen and never attempted.

"Mama," Iruka whimpers, but he obeys. He turns and runs, crashing through the underbrush, blinded by blood and tears. He is far out of sight and out of hearing range when he climbs a tree and curls up in its branches, hidden by the leaves. The sky darkens, the temperature drops, and Iruka is freezing and hungry, but he waits. He waits, and he waits, but no one comes for him.

Eventually, Iruka finds his way back to the road, but all that remains are scraps of wood, fabric, and bloodstains. "Mama," he sobs. "Daddy." But there is no one, and eventually he trudges back to Ba Sing Se. Iruka doesn't know what else to do. He waits for someone to find him. No one does.

He joins the orphaned street children of Ba Sing Se. He learns how to beg and steal, where the best places to squat are, and how to tell whether a person will be more likely to beat him or help him. Iruka runs wild, grows hard and hungry, and if he can't quite give up his bending altogether, he hides it away where no one can see. Standing out is trouble. Some people pay quite well for young children that can be molded to suit their needs, and young impressionable benders are a rare treat.

Iruka is a survivor. It is something he inherited from his father. And the stories help, stories from his mother and Sifu Katara that he tells himself, cycles through them every night when the loneliness is crushing.

Over a year has passed when he is caught by a vaguely familiar looking man in the blue clothing of the Water Tribe. He catches Iruka healing a gash in his leg, and eventually the story comes out. The man, Aput, is heading to the Northern Water Tribe, not the South. But, Aput decides, Iruka needs a home and a teacher; he can stay or make his way back to the Southern Water Tribe with the next group headed that direction, but he won't leave him here, on the streets of Ba Sing Se. He is a dirty, half-wild thing, but Aput will not abandon a fellow tribesman, particularly one so young.

Iruka is wary and suspicious, but he knows the man won't let him be. And he knows the hardships and the cruelty of the streets, knows that this is likely the best offer he will ever receive if he wishes to make his way in the world.

Word is sent to Chief Hakoda about Iruka's survival, as well as a brief account of the raid, what Iruka remembers. He decides to remain in the Northern Water Tribe. He has no family left, nothing to return to, and there are more waterbending masters available here.

He has trouble adjusting. He runs wild, rebels against the strict traditions – not so strict as when Sifu Katara was forbidden to learn to fight, but the prejudice remains. He pranks, laughs when he feels like crying at the taunts from the other children. "Little girl," the boys call him, when they discover he knows healing, is quite good at it. "Gonna grow up and be someone's wife? Were you born without your man parts? Let's see, then, prove you're not a woman. You don't belong here learning waterbending; you're meant to report to the women's lodge."

Iruka doesn't understand their disregard for the healing arts. Even if it hadn't been his last connection to his mother, it is so useful. He would be dead by now if he couldn't heal himself. And so he continues to sit in on healing lessons, and fights back with fists and tricks when the bullies taunt him.

They are bigger and better at waterbending than he is. But his temper flares so quick and hot that he hardly cares; he is used to pain, in any case. And Iruka's father taught him traps. It's easy enough to adjust them to catch the boys in his pranks, and Iruka has always been creative. Waterbending simply broadens the possibilities for chaos and destruction.

His waterbending master is also his guardian. Sifu Kaito believes in hard work before natural talent, in building up strength, agility, and speed before building up waterbending skills. Iruka is impatient, as most of Sifu Kaito's students are. But the physical exercises calm him, teach him patience, and although Iruka never stops pranking, the purpose behind the pranks is less about forcing people to pay attention to him, and more about the satisfaction that comes from a job well done.

Iruka is nearly 14, nearly a waterbending master, when he leaves the Northern Water Tribe. His heart aches to know that, had his father lived, he would have been preparing to be taken ice dodging, a rite of passage that would prove Iruka ready to become a true warrior. He wonders if he would have been given the Mark of the Brave, the Wise, or the Trusted.

Instead he travels, wanders the world. Fellow travelers impart advice, teach him bits and pieces here and there, so that eventually he learns which of his hunting, trapping, and survival skills must be adjusted to these more temperate climes, and how. He knows how to survive – how to thrive – in the harsher arctic tundra. The city streets in the lowest quarters of Ba Sing Se, too, he endured. But the landscape here is far different.

He falls in with a band of Kyoshi warriors, and develops a crush for the first time. Ela has been a warrior for three years, and he follows the group back to Kyoshi Island. They show him how to use his waterbending moves in a hand-to-hand fight, and eventually are persuaded to teach him their style of fighting, which isn't so different from waterbending really. Iruka isn't what anyone would call a natural with the fans, but when Ela laughs and kisses him as a reward for his perseverance, he can't find it in himself to mind how often he makes mistakes. He is even worse with the katana, but after months of hard work they declare him acceptable. And he feels accomplished, feels proud because he incorporates other fighting styles into his waterbending, develops new waterbending moves, and he can't wait to see what else he can blend together. He is creative and unique, and he is beginning to see how to use those skills in something other than pranks.

After almost a year with the Kyoshi warriors, Iruka departs again. He and Ela grew close, so close, maybe too close, because in the last month they had been struggling, clashing, pushing each other apart. He leaves before there is nothing left, before they cannot even stand to be friends.

He wanders wherever his feet take him, returns briefly to Ba Sing Se, as a visitor this time instead of a street rat, explores the Foggy Swamp and is taken aback by the inhabitants, and ends up working as a janitor in a dojo owned by Toph Beifong, where both earthbenders and firebenders are taught. Iruka first learns the styles by watching, and then is invited to join the classes, as both student and practice opponent. It is good experience for all of them; three different elements, one-on-one or in a melee. Iruka never meets Toph Beifong, world's greatest earthbender, and he regrets it a little, but the instructors and students keep him busy.

Unsurprisingly, the firebending style gives him the most trouble. Earthbending has a balance to it, between offence and defense; it is not all about stubbornness, about facing opponents head-on with sheer bullheadedness, although Iruka has that in spades. It is about waiting and listening for the right moment to strike, and then striking decisively. Firebending, on the other hand, is overwhelmingly offensive, the movements swift, whirling, and constant. His muscles burn for weeks, as the teachers force him out of his area of comfort with an element and fighting style that is almost completely opposed to all he has been taught. It is difficult, the instructors often harsh and unyielding. But water adapts, and Iruka survives.

The students do not understand why he would waste time learning a bending style that is not his own, but they tolerate him. The instructors, on the other hand, are fascinated. General Iroh, Dragon of the West, is the only bender they know who incorporated another element's style into his own bending, mimicking waterbending movements to redirect lightning. It is a lesson that has become widely known, the information spread so as to help promote peace and tolerance between nations, and that story has always fascinated Iruka. It is, perhaps, why he is so determined to incorporate the influence of other elements, other styles, into his own waterbending.

One day Iruka awakes on a forest floor that he does not recognize. His pack digs awkwardly into his back, his boomerang is missing, and he does not remember how he got there. The sun is high in the sky, the temperature mild. Has he lost hours? Days? He searches for his boomerang, and never finds it.

Eventually he hears the flow of water and walks toward the sound, finds a stream and follows it. Some of the plants are familiar, but many are strange to him. Iruka has not seen their like before. His stomach clenches, his heart races with nerves when he truly considers his situation, so he tries not to think.

He does not travel far before coming across a small town, and something makes him pause out of sight in the shadow of the trees. He has never seen such clothes. The dull colors bring the Earth Kingdom to mind, but he has never in his life seen such strange styles. And the hair colors! He has never before seen yellow hair, and he cannot help but stare.

Eventually, frightened and confused, Iruka ventures into town. Eventually, he finds a map, of the country, of the world. Something – his heart – lodges in his throat, and he attempts to appear calm as he flees to the shelter of the forest.

"Impossible," he whispers, too panicked even for tears. His body is cold all over, shaking, and he thinks his heart will burst from his chest. "I don't…understand." He racks his memory and comes up with nothing. His mind is a blank. Nothing explains this. It had been just another day at the dojo, and then…what?

Iruka spends the next few nights in a tree, near water where he feels safest. Water is his element. His denial lasts only a few days, and then he can deny no longer. This is not his world. This country does not exist, this world should not exist, but it does, and his world is gone. Or, he has gone from it.

Iruka does not understand. He does not understand what, or how, or why. He assumes his situation has something to do with the spirits, because what else could it be? He has never heard of such a thing happening. But if it has before, how would the story spread? What happened? Had he trespassed on a sacred site, offended a powerful spirit, even stumbled into the spirit world itself?

Is this considered mercy? He has not been killed, merely sent elsewhere? He cannot know the minds of spirits. They are not human; with the exception of Princess Yue, they have never been human, and their ways are not his.

Iruka does not understand this world. Almost nothing is the same. Society and customs are strange, from what little he has managed to observe. Even the plants are unrecognizable, and the animals are bizarre. Many seem almost diminished in some way. It is as though they are missing part of themselves, as though they were only half-finished. Iruka knows no one and nothing. He thought his world ended when his parents died, but at least he knew the geography, the customs, the animals, even simply the clothes. At least he could always return to his childhood home. He had no family, and few friends, but at least there were people of his tribe, of his sister tribe.

Iruka thinks death may have been more merciful.

He does not know how much time he lost, between his last, ordinary day at the dojo, and the day he woke on the forest floor. And Iruka never regains the memories he lost.

* * *

This plot bunny is rabid. I've been sitting on it for a while, and already I have plans for a sequel and an AU spin-off sort of thing that would take place near the middle/end of this fic.

I'll also warn you that this is a sort of AU Naruto-verse. I'm not too familiar with Naruto, but I'll try to keep most of the things like geography, ninja, abilities, major plot lines, etc. the same, or at least similar. However, there will also be some deliberate changes, as you will see in a chapter or two.

Also, this will eventually be kakairu. Don't complain if you don't like it, since I'm warning you now.


	2. Prologue, Part 2: After

So, this is the end of the two-part prologue, and the writing style will become more normal/standard (however it's described), without the present tense and with more dialogue.

Happy Holidays everyone!

* * *

Iruka wanders with no destination in mind. One place is no better or worse than another, and he only occasionally comes across people in any case. He is in the wilderness somewhere – anywhere – it hardly matters. He has nowhere to go. He has nowhere to return.

He grows hungry. The supplies in his pack last a few days, and he takes the time he has left to observe the animals. Iruka knows better than to make assumptions about plants that appear edible, particularly in a world that is so dissimilar to his own. The white dragon bush and the white jade bush, after all, appear nearly identical, though one is poisonous and the other is famed for the tea made with its leaves and flowers. Iruka is neither reckless, nor depressed enough yet to give up and leave his fate in the hands of chance, or fate, or spirits. He is stubborn enough to survive in the face of extreme ignorance, though he does not yet know what he survives for.

Iruka's observations are not enough. Not quite. He has so far identified only a handful of berries and roots that are safe to consume, and supplements the diet with fish and small animals caught in his snares. A book, an actual guide to the flora and fauna of the world, or at least the region, is necessary. When he finds a road that is more a trail than anything, he follows it to a small town. There is no bookstore or library, but at the general store he barters for the guide he requires, and stays a few days to listen and observe. Knowledge, as he has come to understand, is power; at the moment, he is uncomfortably powerless.

Iruka does not have the funds for room and board, so he does odd jobs around town, mainly cleaning and repair work. He lingers in cafes, listens with gentle smiles and soft encouragement to the people he meets, and if he cannot manage sincere happiness, at least he can be friendly. Iruka's sharp, clever mind whirs, storing what information and speculation he can before leaving three days later. He still does not know – cannot quite understand – what "shinobi" means, but he did not dare to ask for clarification. It is obviously an important, well-known occupation, and Iruka does not dare draw attention to himself by asking, or by remaining longer with the small, insular town.

The plant guide becomes worn with use as Iruka studies it, compares pictures and descriptions to reality. He has not dropped dead, nor become ill, so it must at least be accurate.

He does not know what to do with himself.

Iruka wanders aimlessly – inland, he thinks, having discovered that he is on an island in a land known as Water; it is appropriate, and surprising, and sad, and he _aches_ with the unfamiliarity of it. He cannot remain in the woods and the meadows indefinitely, certainly not when winter arrives. But can he afford to remain within a town? Can he not? He will learn little of this world beyond the flora and fauna of Mizu no Kuni, if he becomes a hermit in the wilderness, provided he does not die of winter cold or worse. He does not think he can afford ignorance.

But where will he go? The island map showed only small towns, and there he will never be able to blend into a crowd; he will draw the eye always, stick out as a stranger. Iruka needs a large city, not even so large as Ba Sing Se or the Northern Water Tribe, where he can have access to books, a library, and be simply another face among the crowd.

The mist plays tricks with his eyes, though Iruka does not dare bend it out of his way. Something insists that he keep his waterbending abilities secret ("_Down with the benders_," whispers a voice from childhood nightmares), and later he will be glad several times over to have listened to his instincts. For now, however, he occasionally sees figures, people in the distance, and sometimes hears the clang of metal against metal. What makes him almost desperate to know, to research and understand, is that even in broad, clear daylight they seem to disappear into thin air, or to move at speeds greater than a human should be able, though he concedes that distance and perspective may have something to do with the phenomenon. Perhaps they are only men; but perhaps, just perhaps, they are spirits. Perhaps they can give him answers, or even – he does not dare hope – send him home.

One day, he finds what he is looking for. Rising from the mist, several mountains set as a background, is a large city. Iruka does not know why it did not appear on the map, particularly considering its size, but he hardly spends much time in contemplation.

He watches from the cover of the trees, notices that the few visitors to the city appear required to show papers at the gate, and his heart sinks. He has no papers, has no idea what might happen to him if he should admit to it. Even if he were allowed to apply for entry, how would he answer the questions that would be sure to follow? The only geography he knows of this world is the little gleaned from a public map in a store. Iruka knows nothing about politics or people, economy or society. A child, he knows, will be far better informed than himself.

Instead, Iruka attempts to sneak in a few days later, nearly halfway around the city in an area where he is almost certain no guards are present.

This is a mistake, and he pays dearly.

Of course he would never have been able to see the guards, much less sense their presence. Of course he would never be able to enter unnoticed. Of course his presence near the walls had not been overlooked. Iruka, then, was too ignorant to know the futility – and danger – of his actions.

Kirigakure is not kind to potential spies, however foolish they appear. And innocence means little when a lone, weak foreigner wanders into the hands of Torture & Investigation, practically volunteering himself as a test subject, or training tool.

Iruka has never been tortured before. He has never felt such pain, and no longer tries to refrain from screaming in a futile show of defiance, because he is long past caring what they think of him. He had hope, once, that they would allow him to leave once he had proven not to be an enemy or spy. That hope is long gone, and he knows that when they release him it will be because he is dead.

And so he escapes. The details are hazy, but he runs, and by some miracle they do not find him. He staggers, sloshes across streams, and falls to the ground when he can no longer go on. Clear, running water quenches his thirst, and he chances a root vegetable raw, because he does not dare to light a fire. He passes out, and when he wakes he follows the stream until he judges himself far enough from any pursuers to chance a meal. Sunlight glitters on fish scales, and without any fishhook or spear, with his body as battered and bruised as it is, Iruka can only rely on waterbending if he wishes to catch his meal quickly.

He takes his stance, motions deliberately, and…

Nothing.

Panicked tears gather in the corners of his eyes, his breath escapes in harsh pants, and he repeats the movements.

Still nothing.

What was wrong with him? What had his captors done to him? How was this possible?

He is free. He is free, and something is wrong, and he bites down sharply on his lip in confusion and fear, drawing blood…

The torture chamber's walls shimmer and appear around him, and Iruka jerks in alarm, crying out as his injuries are jarred. His wrists and ankles are chained to an uncomfortable chair, and Iruka has no idea what has happened, how he has gotten there, but the screaming agony of imprisonment and torture after his taste of escape and freedom is almost more painful than his open, burning wounds.

Iruka breaks. His mind shatters a little each time he is trapped in what he has discovered to be some sort of illusion, as they taunt him with escape, or even home at the south pole. He does not know what sort of…of bending, of magic, this is. But he discovers a way to tell whether his seeming escapes are reality or delusion. By the fifth time they catch him in the illusion, he confirms that if he cannot bend water, what he sees is not real. By the seventh time, Iruka confirms that sharp, sudden pain can bring him back to reality.

Time means nothing to Iruka. All he knows is that if he does not escape soon, he never will.

When they bind his hands with rope and wire, instead of metal, when the man on duty nearly drowns him in a barrel of water and then revives him, again and again, he knows that this is the best chance he will get. Gagging, coughing up water, he jerks his bound hands up, and the water shoots up into his torturer's face, hardening into ice to suppress any shouts that would bring the other guards running or call forth a jutsu.

Words, he has discovered, are part of what brings forth what seems to him to be magic; hand signs are the other half.

Before his torturer can take another step, Iruka slams a small, slender spear of ice into his throat, and watches dispassionately as he collapses in a puddle of blood. His search of the dead man for weapons is awkward with bound hands and broken fingers, but Iruka amasses a small collection of knives and what he believes are called "shuriken".

Iruka gathers the water in a layer around his body, and hopes that the glow of healing is not too noticeable. The burns, open wounds, and internal bleeding heal for the most part, leaving behind a network of thin white scars and extreme tenderness where the worst of the damage had been. Broken bones, on the other hand, have always troubled Iruka, and he has no time now to set them and speed up the healing process. He must escape; he is not sure how much longer he can last otherwise.

It is desperation and the advantage of surprise that allow Iruka to slit the throat of the guard outside of the chamber with no one the wiser. He limps, body aching, until he reaches the grate that leads to the sewers, leaving behind a third dead body and gaining a stab wound in the shoulder for his troubles. By the time the alarm is sounded he is beyond hearing, beyond caring about the stench of the sewers, and only sheer bullheadedness keeps him on his feet and bending the polluted liquid from his path.

It wastes energy, perhaps, but if he does not continue bending, he cannot prove to himself that this is real and true and not delusion.

The sewer eventually leads him to a river and, not knowing what shinobi are capable of when it comes to tracking, he remains within the river. He pushes through his exhaustion and heavy limbs, bending the current to bring him faster to the sea – because surely the river leads to the sea, to open water, and perhaps an escape.

The night is dark, the clouds hiding the moon and stars when Iruka collapses on the riverbank, passing out in exhaustion with his lower body still trapped within the current. Even the cold and pain cannot bring him to wakefulness, and when the first light of dawn stirs him, his body aches and screams in pain. He is not certain how long he has been unconscious, and does not dare linger to set his broken bones, not until he reaches the ocean.

Iruka is lucky that an island is just barely visible in the distance, and aims for the far shore with little thought or care to what creatures might lurk in the water. Desperation and fear keep him moving; the island seems not nearly far enough from Kirigakure, and so he stows away on a boat, hardly caring where it goes so long as it is away.

Only then, en route to Yu no Kuni, does he realize that he has, for the first time in his life killed another person. Not just one, but three; living, breathing people, his torturers and captors, and he saw only their cruelty, but that wasn't all they were, was it? Perhaps they had families; they must have been loved? His thoughts scatter and skitter, as he sobs into his knees, because he hates them, pities them, wanted them to stop, never wanted them to die, never wanted to kill, though he wished at times they would drop dead and leave him alone. He is broken, Iruka knows it, they broke him, mind and bones, so much of his blood spilled and splattered. He bites down on his torn, dirty pants and tries to stifle the noise threatening to emerge from his throat.

He grasps for something, anything else to distract his thoughts, realizes and takes the time to mourn his lost possessions, the last material remnants of his home world. There is an emptiness in his heart as he thinks of the ivory choker his Sifu Kaito had gifted him.

The stories are all that remain. These, at least, have been burned into his memory; first as a child who loved them, then as an orphan in the streets to alleviate his desperately lonely nights, and now as a tortured prisoner who uses them to keep himself sane.

* * *

Danger is not through with him in freedom, and Iruka is not so foolish as to think he is safe. He is unlucky one evening, months later, and falls prey to a group of bandits. He hesitates too long to defend himself with more than his fists and knives, and at least one of the bandits is – or was – shinobi. Iruka cannot keep up with any sort of shinobi, he knows this better now, though he does not give up.

For his efforts he is rewarded with something like a giant shuriken slamming into his back, and the loss of what few possessions he has managed to acquire. The fuuma shuriken – he discovers the proper term later – barely misses his spine, and cracks two of his ribs, leaving him prone on the ground, groaning in agony. They leave him for dead; had the rain not been pouring in sheets throughout the night they may have been right. With every drop that lands upon his gushing wound, the skin and muscle knit ever so slightly back together.

Iruka attempts to lift himself onto his elbows and drag himself into a better position. Instead, he nearly gags on the pain, bile rising in his throat and darkness creeping in his vision. He stops moving immediately, lets himself collapse and simply try to breathe, because if he passes out he may never wake up. He is not one who can heal in his sleep.

Nearly a day later, when at last he can move without risking unconsciousness, he staggers slowly toward a nearby road and follows it away from the bandit camp, in search of someone he can beg for bandages, or a shirt, as the one he wears is soaked through and heavy with blood.

And then, Iruka determines, he will search out someone to teach him the limits, and the most basic skills, of a shinobi.

It is not an easy task he has set himself. No Hidden Village will be likely to teach him, even if he dared to near one, or managed to enter without some form of identification. This seems to leave only the missing nins, the criminals and deserters, and Iruka cannot trust them as far as he can throw them, even were he to find one willing to teach him, which is far from likely.

He does find one, eventually, older and without the madness or sadism he senses in other missing nin. The man does not give his name; he is not kind or patient, and is reluctant to impart knowledge and skill. Iruka learns a little bit about chakra, though not now he can access it, and a little of the taijutsu, though only a few katas, and a little about the countries and people of this world. He takes all he hears with a grain of salt, learning that it is best not to question the gruff older man directly, and in exchange Iruka hunts, and cooks, and takes care of the camp.

Eventually, less than a month after meeting him, Iruka and the missing nin part ways, more or less cordially. The shinobi has been hired for some sort of job Iruka knows is highly illegal and may ruin the lives of innocents, and Iruka will not follow.

Iruka passes through town after town, listening to the people, browsing through libraries and bookstores, and slowly increases his knowledge of this strange new world. He skims every book or scroll he can discover relating to religion and the supernatural, but there is surprisingly little to find. They are not, it seems, a very religious people, despite what the spiritual energy element of chakra may imply, never mind the familiarity with death among shinobi. The bijuu are, it seems, as close as the people come to the existence of spirits on this mortal plane, and they seem to think very little of the tailed beasts; Iruka can, to a point, understand the fear, and even hatred after reading about the madness, power, and destructive capability of the nine bijuu, although as an outsider he does not feel so keenly or personally. In any case, nothing he reads suggests that any of them would be able, much less willing, to send him home. The longer he remains within this world, the less he believes he will ever see his again.

As time passes, Iruka focuses less on returning home, and more on making his way within the Elemental Countries.

He is wandering a tourist town in northern Yu no Kuni when he sees the white-haired man behind the women's bath houses. Iruka pauses, astonished by the man's audacity, before examining him more closely. The man has a tall, powerful frame, though he is currently hunched over and giggling perversely as he peers through the slats of wood. At this angle, his face is in profile; Iruka can make out a red line running down from his eye, as well as a hitaiate in a style slightly different than any other he has seen. Two important points stick out to the waterbender: the man's hitaiate does not have the slash denoting missing nin, and the symbol on the hitaiate is not affiliated with any village so far as he knows, and he has made it a point to be able to identify the symbols of all Hidden Villages.

Iruka's considers the man for another moment, his mind flicking quickly through explanations, scenarios, and plans. The corners of his mouth twitch, just a little, and it is the first time in quite a long time he feels…not quite happy, or content, but…hopeful.

If he is lucky, he has finally found his shinobi teacher.


End file.
